


I Still Call Out For You

by lovedsammy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel is Jack Kline's Parent, Comfort Sex, Episode: s14e08 Byzantium, First Time, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mourning, Sam Winchester is Jack Kline's Parent, Sastiel Dads, SastielLoveWeek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:41:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23508547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovedsammy/pseuds/lovedsammy
Summary: Cas has wanted to be near him all night, to offer him comfort somehow. He’s not exactly sure how to; tapping into the deeper reserves of emotion has never really been his strong suit. What he knows for sure is that as painful as Jack’s death is to him, as impossibly unbearable, it is much more so for Sam. Sam, who was human and feeling and had loved Jack from the first day of his birth. Sam, who viewed Jack as a son as much as Castiel did. Their shared son, in a way.Written for SastielLoveWeek. Episode tag to 14.08, "Byzantium."Cas does what he should've done and comforts Sam. It ends up leading them somewhere deeper than comfort.
Relationships: Castiel/Sam Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 88
Collections: Sastiel Love Week 2020





	I Still Call Out For You

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all! I decided to participate in Sastiel Love Week for the very first time and flesh out a plot-bunny that I've wanted to write since the episode aired. Cas was so desperate to console Sam after Jack's death, and I decided to make this a little in-between of what happened between the night and morning of Jack's resurrection. So pretty canon compliant, but my own twist on things.
> 
> Just as a warning, this will have some dubious consent undertones -- only because Sam is drunk and in a state where he cannot properly consent. However, I tried to write it explicitly clear that Sam DOES want this, and has for a while, and make sure that Cas is just as aware of it. 
> 
> This fic is also UNBETA'ED. I tried to go over everything and rectify mistakes, like tone and direction and of course grammar. But I only unfortunately have one set of eyes and may have missed something, so if there's something striking that you find, please let me know so that I can edit it.

The perception of time was a concept that, even with his humanly-gained knowledge and expertise, still managed to remain elusive to Castiel. The years that he’d spent with the Winchesters, the good and the bad and the in-between, still only felt like an instant. As was the curse of Angels. He was an endless being, destined to wander forever alone than to ever be continuously fixated upon any one time or place. 

Never for too long, anyway. 

The past decade that he’d spent knowing Sam and Dean - and now Jack - was fleeting, a fond but rather minuscule period of his life in the grand scheme of it all. Time was a fluid thing, always changing, always adapting. And with it, the already little significance that time itself had for him.

What importance was time to a celestial creature, after all? 

Especially for one that nowadays resembled closer to being human.

Still, the ever quickening depletion of Jack’s already too-short-lived life, and the painful days it was bringing to the bunker, was seeming more like a stagnant eternity. It was like time had come to a stall, drawing itself out, as though intent on punishing Castiel personally. And not just him - but Sam and Dean, too. And yet, it is also all too much at once, entirely too fast. Over the course of the past two days, Jack had continued to deteriorate at a speed that was incredibly worrying, making the angel pray for the first time in a very, very long time. 

It didn’t matter that no one was listening. 

Rising from his place on his knees, he gathers himself as he heads back towards Jack’s bedroom for the countless number of times that day. And as always, he’s unsurprised when he reaches the half-opened door and sees that Sam is still there with him. The sight makes Castiel’s chest feel heavy, and the edges of his lips quirk slightly, albeit sadly. Sam’s been seated at Jack’s bedside without interruption ever since Rowena had declared the news, hardly leaving the room except to attend to the more urgent, basic necessities that his body required - the use of the bathroom or to get water. More often than not, he doesn’t move at all. Cas wonders if Sam himself knows the last time that he really slept, or ate a hearty meal.

From his place out in the hall, Cas watches him.

The younger Winchester is pale, almost paler than the dying kid in the bed, and his eyes are clouded with unshed tears. The rims of his eyelids are seared red, the skin underneath them displaying the dark circles that further pronounce his noticeably lighter complexion. He looks awful. 

Although neither Cas or Dean speak of it, they both know that the reality of losing Jack was hitting Sam so much harder than it was for either of them, making him run himself ragged. Sam is scared to tear his eyes off of Jack for even a second, terrified of letting the boy die alone, of not being there in his final moments. More than once, Cas has come in to check on the both of them, and caught Sam just beginning to doze off with his much bigger hand still cradling Jack’s smaller one. And whenever Jack wakes from a restless sleep and surges into another coughing fit, in a heartbeat, Sam is alert and wide awake, the first to offer comfort and rub his shoulders and ease him through it.

If Sam senses that Cas is nearby, he doesn't show it. His attention is solely focused on Jack, calloused fingers softly brushing through the kid's sandy hair. Jack stirs a little, but doesn't wake, the closest that he's come to resting peacefully for the first time in weeks. Sam’s touch had a way of soothing him, even through the worst of it. 

Castiel is sure that if anyone were ever father material, it was Sam Winchester.

And as much as he also loves Jack, he is content to stand back and watch Sam care for the boy who had become their son, so that he can be there to catch Sam when he inevitably falls, too.

* * *

Time reconfigures itself again.

Jack doesn’t even make it through the night. 

The young nephilim’s body is still warm by the time Castiel and Dean return, but the angel knows at once just by the way that Sam’s shoulders are hunched with grief and Jack’s chest is unmoving, that it’s already too late. The content smile on Jack’s slackened features does little to ease the blow that reverberates throughout Cas’s entire being.

He’d promised Kelly that he’d protect her son. He’d promised her that he’d raise him and teach him and keep him safe. Jack was supposed to survive him, outlast them all. Children didn’t die before their parents; that was not how the universe was supposed to work. 

But then, he supposes, the universe never did work in his or their favor. It was cruel in its decisiveness. 

Sam’s voice is croaky raw when he speaks the dreaded words. “He’s gone.” He heaves a long, watery sigh before he turns, directing sorrowful eyes to Dean and Cas, tears still clinging to his lashes. He looks ruined, lost, seconds away from breaking apart. “He’s _gone_. He’s really - ” 

“Sam.” 

Knowing that Sam is about to emotionally collapse, Dean reaches out immediately, gently easing his brother up to stand on unsteady legs. Cas does what both of them can’t and fluffs Jack’s blanket, securing it over the boy’s lifeless form. The angel curses time again, hating it. This was the way of life, of course, inevitable for all living things: To be here, alive in seeming everlasting permanence, yet gone in a fragile instant. 

The three of them congregate in the hall, for a long time not saying anything, all of them trying to pretend that Jack’s corpse isn’t rotting by the second just a room over from them.

“Maybe we should start thinking about next steps.” Cas suggests slowly. It hardly feels real, discussing it, the finality of it. Jack should still be here, still smiling brightly with that impossible innocence of his, bringing a radiant light to all of their lives. The injustice of it all makes Cas want to bargain with the universe, to the uncaring Father that he still for some reason has a modicum of faith in. A weakened faith, and tested, barely anything at all. But he holds onto it, still clinging to it like a lifeline.

But bargaining is simply one of the five stages of grief, he knows, and would amount to nothing but an empty prayer. God wasn’t listening anymore. 

Dean’s response is instantaneous, but heartfelt. “Wake and a bonfire. Hunter style. It’s what Jack would’ve wanted.”

Sam, leaning against the wall as if it was the only thing holding him up, throws his head back in pure agony, and without a word ushers past them, body shaking. 

“Sam -” Cas makes to go after him, but Dean catches his arm, stopping him. “Your brother’s in pain.”

The hand comes to rest on his shoulder. “Just let him be,” Dean says sadly. “He needs his space, and we’re gonna give it to him.” 

Castiel watches Sam disappear around the corner. He’s watched Sam grieve, seen it more than he’d ever hoped he would. He always spiraled when left alone. Dean couldn’t know that, not really, because half of the time, he wasn’t there to watch the level of his younger brother’s descent.

But maybe he was right. 

Maybe Sam just needed some time alone, even if Castiel resents leaving him to it. 

* * *

In the end, he knew that he should’ve just trusted his instincts and gone after Sam, and what Dean said be damned.

Sam had taken off without so much as a word, and now they were speeding down the pitch-black curved roads of Lebanon searching for him. Fortunately, he hadn’t gone far. It’s not long before they find him, sitting in the dirt and huddled close to himself. Cas barely has the car stopped before Dean leaps out, yelling, accusing Sam of making a deal.

“A deal, what? No. I was trying to build a pyre,” Sam explains, tormented, gesturing around to the several half-cut tree stumps and broken ax. “And I couldn’t… I couldn’t even do that for him.”

Cas blinks against the onslaught of tears, sharing the very same regret, and the same level of Sam's pain. 

“I should’ve done more. I should’ve tried harder,” Sam laments. “Everything we’ve got, the spells, the lore; what good is any of it if we couldn’t even save him?”

It’s a question directed at the universe as much as it is at them. 

“At least you were there for him,” Dean offers gently by way of consolation. It does little to ease Sam’s guilt, lessen the depths of the loss. 

It does little to ease Cas’s, either.

When they return home, they spend the rest of the long hours of the night gathered around the table, drinking and remembering. Their joint agony turns into a memorial, recalling fond memories of the boy that was currently frozen away in a make-shift morgue that Castiel had made himself. They make their way through the first bottle of whiskey surprisingly fast, enough so that Cas barely tastes the alcohol. He’s disappointed that even with his limited grace, it still does little for him, but he drinks each glass Dean pours anyway. Rummaging through the kitchen, Dean happens upon a box of nougat chocolate bars - Jack’s favorite.

He tosses them onto the table.

Cas reaches for one, turning it over in his fingers with a smile. “Oh. He loved nutty cream.”

Sam rips the packaging of one of the bars open, unabashedly taking a rather large bite of it. The caramel drizzles down his chin, and he chokes back a laugh, grimacing. “Whoa, that’s way too sweet.” 

At his reaction, Castiel laughs, too.

He doesn't know if it's the alcohol finally taking effect, or if it's just Sam's laughter, but he's starting to feel warm. 

* * *

Sam is the first to get drunk.

It should be concerning, how uncharacteristically fast he downs glass after glass. But Castiel figures that so long as Sam is here, surrounded by those who love him, who he means the most to, it doesn’t matter. Dean had been right on that front - as long as Sam was with them facing his grief, coping in what little way he could, it was worth it.

Cas has wanted to be near him all night, to offer him comfort somehow. He’s not exactly sure how to; tapping into the deeper reserves of emotion has never really been his strong suit. What he knows for sure is that as painful as Jack’s death is to him, as impossibly unbearable, it is much more so for Sam. Sam, who was human and feeling and had loved Jack from the first day of his birth. Sam, who viewed Jack as a son as much as Castiel did. Their shared son, in a way. 

Dean hovers the now almost-empty fifth bottle of whiskey over Sam’s glass, preparing to pour his brother another shot of the liquid anesthetic, when Sam puts his hand over it instead, shaking his head. 

“Nah, I’m good, Dean,” He slurs, flipping it over. “I’m done. Gonna… gonna go to bed. Night.” 

He’s up and out the door much quicker and on steadier legs than Castiel had expected, and his heart clenches again as he watches Sam go. He could stay here with Dean, and drink until there was nothing left for either of them to consume. Or he could go after Sam, like every bone in his body intends.

He knows the decision is already on his face, because after a few minutes of meaningless conversation, Dean catches his eye and nods.

So Cas goes. 

* * *

The door is partway open when Cas arrives in front of it, the dim light of the desk lamp barely enough to alight the room. Sam is sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, still dressed in his day clothes.

He doesn’t even look up when Cas enters and closes the door. It was a part of their normal nightly routine, anyway. The angel would join Sam in his room when the younger Winchester was getting prepped for bed, and they'd watch something on Netflix together. Sometimes, Cas took the chair. But more recently, Sam had started to allow him to lie in bed with him. It'd become a casual enough occurrence that Sam joked that he needed to get Cas his own pillow at some point. And even though Castiel didn't have much need for sleep, the only time he ever managed to slip into a peaceful rest was when Sam was laying at his side. It had never gone beyond that, sharing the bed, even if there were plenty of unspoken moments always bridging on the edge of something more, something further. 

“We failed him, Cas,” Sam rasps quietly. “We all did. _I_ did. If I’d just paid attention, spent time with him more, took care of him better, I -”

At once, Castiel lowers himself to Sam’s eye level, placing his hands upon his shoulders firmly. “No. Stop it. It's not your fault. You can’t blame yourself. Like Dean said, you did everything you could for him. You were the first person he ever saw, as well as the last. You being here brought him comfort and peace, in a way that Dean nor I could’ve. Sam, look at me.”

Sam lowers his hands, revealing his tear-stained face.

“It's not your fault,” Cas repeats slowly.

Sam looks doubtful, but he doesn't refute it. Instead, he swallows and swipes the back of his hand over his eyes. “You said before that losing a son… feels different. It does. It really fucking does. It’s… worse than almost anything. He was ours… our responsibility. Our kid, Cas. Our son. Yours, and mine, and…” 

Castiel shushes him, moving his hands up to cup Sam’s face. “Yes. _Our_ son. And _our_ son would not want you to be blaming yourself, to be suffering like this. I don’t, either. I wish I could just take all of this weight off of you, Sam. If I could take away everything that ever hurt you, I would.”

Sam’s lips twitch, a spark of remembrance in his eye. “Just like you did when my wall broke down… and you fixed me?”

The memory gives the angel pause. It was a horrible part of their history, but also incredibly formulating in a way, establishing the connection between them that had only grown and developed over the years. Lifting the damage that he'd caused and taking it into himself had bonded them in a way that Castiel had never done with another human being, or even another entity. Sam's pain was palpable to him, because it was a part of him, now. There was nothing more than Castiel had regretted in his many years than what he'd done to Sam. 

“Yes,” Cas says resolutely after a moment. “Just like when _I_ broke your wall down. And then took your torment into myself, not just to rectify my mistake of hurting you to begin with. But because you are my closest friend, my family, and I love you deeply. I would take every ounce of your pain and more if it meant that I never had to see you hurt like this again. To see you happy is the only thing that I want now.” 

Sam blinks, eyebrows shooting up. “Cas, you..”

The meaning of what Castiel is saying isn't lost on him, even in his intoxicated state. Apart from co-parenting a nephilim, he guesses that he and Cas had been moving towards this for a while now. Before either of them had realized it, they’d started to fall for each other. He'd always felt something for Cas, in a way, but it hadn't been until Gadreel's expulsion that he'd started to feel more. Much more. He just hadn't entertained the possibility that Cas could really feel the same. He'd wondered, sure, but having that belief cemented was another story. Gathering up his nerve, Sam leans in towards the angel, slowly at first because although he suspects that Cas feels as he does, he wants to give him room to back out. But Cas just stares at him, his expression soft and open, so he finally allows his lips to surge forward and meet the angel's pliant ones.

Cas responds, also tentative, and then when Sam breaches his mouth with his tongue does he deepen the kiss with a vigor that leaves both of them gasping for air. Mind made up at last, Sam quickly undoes his flannel and yanks the undershirt over his head, leaving his chest bare. He's drunk, yeah, but he’s not drunk enough to be unaware of what he was doing, what it is that he wants right now, what he’s asking of Cas.

“Sam?” Cas eyes widen in surprise. He knows that this is what Sam wants, what he needs right now. But he's more aware than most of the consent issues and violations of bodily autonomy that Sam’s endured in the past, and he isn’t about to add to that growing list just to sate his own tempting desires.

But Sam seizes his wrists, placing the angel's hands on his chest. “Don’t. Don’t overthink it. I want this. I want you. I always have, I think. I don’t know. I just… right now, just… make me feel something else,” He begs. “Please, Cas.”

His muscles are just as firm as Castiel had expected, and he aches to touch more. They don’t know if either of them are going to regret this in the morning, if it will fracture what already exists between them or otherwise allow something more to continue to grow. But Sam is here, asking this of him, willing to give in to the desire that both of them have been feeling tonight and for many nights before this. And right now, he can’t deny Sam anything.

So Cas does. 

It’s awkward and fumbly at first, in a way that is different from his very first time with April. He is still inexperienced when it comes to intimacy, be it sexual or otherwise. He doesn’t know what Sam likes, how exactly it would - should - work with them. He doesn’t know Sam’s boundaries, doesn’t even know his own. But he tries to focus less on the process and more on pleasuring Sam. He lets his intuition do the work, remembering what April had done with him, and as soon as the pants are off, dips in between Sam’s legs. He experiments, swirling his tongue around the head of Sam’s length and then under the vein, giving the underside a measurable swipe. 

Sam moans, hips bucking, and the sound makes Cas’s innards soar and his own cock twitch in excitement. He repeats the motions, teasing the slit, too, and growing braver, wraps his lips around the base, sucking. He can feel Sam’s need pulsing in his mouth, throbbing as he thickens, and it’s bliss. Above him, Sam’s still making those same wonderful noises, and it surprises Cas with how much more he wants to get them out of him. He goes faster, harder, deeper, trying to educate himself quickly so that he can keep doing this for Sam. It’s difficult even for him, certainly no easy feat, especially for a man of Sam’s size.

He must be doing something right, because Sam moans again, heartily. 

“Fuck, Cas,” He gasps, fingers threading through Cas’s hair. “Your mouth…” 

The angel grins a little to himself, soaking in the praise. It inspires him to keep going, to keep building Sam up. He's getting used to it, the strain in his jaw, hollowing his cheeks to take more of him, until he can tell that the younger Winchester is close. He speeds up, wanting to bring Sam to completion, when the hunter shakes his head.

“Wait, Cas, stop. Not yet. I don’t…. I don’t want this to be over yet,” He admits, flushing, the pink in his cheeks deepening. “Can you… uh, I want you to be…” He falters a little, unsure how to ask.

At his hesitance, Castiel smiles. Now that sobriety was starting to come back to him, was Sam getting embarrassed? He can't help but think that Sam looks absolutely gorgeous like this, with his reservations and inhibitions shed, vulnerable before him in every way that mattered. And really, if he's honest, he wants to prolong it, too. 

“Tell me,” He coaxes. “What do you need? I will do whatever you ask of me.”

In reply, Sam gropes between Cas’s legs, and the angel hisses from the tight but pleasurable grip. He’d completely forgotten about his own aching erection, hadn’t even thought about his own desires. But apparently, Sam had. 

“I want you in me,” Sam says desperately. “Cas, be one with me. Share it all with me.”

And even with how filthy hot as the words are, Cas knows it's not just the sex that Sam is referring to. Shared pleasure and pain… it always seemed to go that way for the two of them, didn’t it? Somehow, it’s a perfect harmony. There's no lube to be found - Sam hasn't needed it for years, he knows, so in combination of his grace and his tongue, Cas takes great care to make sure that Sam is fully prepared to take him, finding that the younger Winchester makes a symphony of beautiful sounds with his vocal chords when his hole is being lavished. Once Sam's completely wet and almost keening, he steadily eases himself inside Sam. 

The tightness is, at once, both perfect and not enough. He stills for a minute, letting Sam adjust. “Are you all right?” 

“Good,” Sam says breathlessly, burying his head into Cas’s shoulder with a groan as the angel begins to move. It makes Cas’s flesh tickle. “God, Cas, you feel amazing.” 

Cas nods, lost in the feeling of Sam clenched around him, too. His dick is absolutely pulsating inside of Sam, making him lightheaded. He rocks back and forth, pushing himself deeper, and when he hits a certain angle, Sam almost arches off the bed. 

“Oh, God,” Sam gasps, raising his hips a little to give Cas an even better, deeper angle. “Fuck.”

Castiel growls, the pressure mounting. He won’t be able to last much longer, and from the looks of it, neither will Sam. Cas pumps Sam again, smearing the precome over his slit. Now at the height of his pleasure, Sam whines, feeling too much at once. Not unexpectedly, for the first time since they started this, the tears come again. 

“I can’t handle it, Cas,” He chokes. “I can’t do it. I can’t just go on like…” 

“I know,” Cas whispers, planting a heated kiss on Sam’s lips. “But he would want us to. You know that. He would want us to be happy, to be here with each other. He knew how much you loved him, how much we both did. How much we both still do.” 

Sam nods, moaning again as Cas hits his sweet spot. He's so close now. 

“Come for me, Sam,” Cas urges him. “You don’t need to hold back. Let it go.”

Face screwed up with a mix of pleasure and torment, Sam comes with a sob, and Cas follows directly after. He rides Sam through the aftershocks, both of their bodies trembling. Once it’s over and clarity has returned, Cas retracts from inside Sam and lies down next to him, gathering him in his arms. It doesn't matter that physically Sam is larger than he is, tangled in a mess of limbs. He mindlessly strokes Sam’s hair, and can feel the tension lessen by the second from Sam’s aggrieved body. 

“Sleep now.” The angel tells him. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone.”

A sniffle, a rattling breath, and then: “I know.” 

They lie together in the silence for what feels like a long time, and Cas thinks Sam’s finally fallen asleep when suddenly his breath hitches. “Holy shit.”

“What?” Cas asks, alarmed. Had he accidentally done something, hurt Sam during their unity?

Sam rolls over in his arms to face him, his eyes blown wide. “ Cas, I think… I think I might have an idea,” He says quickly. “About how to bring Jack back. It won’t be easy, and it may not even work, but...” 

Cas doesn’t even have the heart to question it. He leans up on his elbow, heart hammering. “Tell me,” He insists.


End file.
